Gender Pay Gap Legislation – What do HR need to know?

With Gender Pay Gap legislation due to come into force on 6th April 2017, many HR professionals are understandably concerned that they may not be fully informed and ready for what is expected of them.

The new regulations will require all private sector companies with more than 250 employees to collect extensive data on all salaries within their businesses, with the first results due to be published on 4th April 2018. All data collected must directly relate to all those deemed as ‘employees’ under S.83 of the Equality Act 2010.

The aim of the gender pay reporting requirements is to highlight large organisations where men are paid disproportionately more than women undertaking similar roles. With the UK pay gap currently at 9%, it is hoped that the new reporting requirements will encourage greater transparency and conversation around pay. Each organisation will be required to make their pay gap publicly available to customers, employees and potential future recruits. As a result, it is hoped that employers will consider taking new or faster actions to reduce or eliminate troublesome gender pay gaps.

With specific data and reporting capabilities required to be ready on or before specific dates, we’ve put together a timetable of activities to guide you in getting your business ready for gender pay reporting:

Now

Ensure that your organisation is collecting the data needed to conduct gender pay gap reporting. As per S.83 the Equality Act 2010, this must cover all employees, including those working on apprenticeships or on a contractual basis.

Consider if collecting relevant, additional data could benefit any internal analysis of gender pay gaps, or else to help contextualize your official findings in greater detail. For example, you could look at the overall gender profile of your business, the percentage of males and females in part-time positions, how bonuses are paid and to whom, and even use any historical gender data to understand current pay gap concerns.

5th April 2017

You should be actively beginning to collect data for your first reporting period. Due to rules on bonus pay, you will need to include data from the year preceding 5th April 2017 – ensure that you include all payments from April 2016 onwards. Pay data will cover payments from April 2017 only.

6th April 2017

The Equality Act (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 for private and voluntary-sector employers will come into force. Organisations of 250 or more employees will be legally required to publish prescribed information on gender pay gaps.

Begin to carry out calculations to determine your results.

4th April 2018

On this date, you must publish the results of your gender pay gap analysis on both your organisation’s website and on the Government portal. A signed statement attesting to their accuracy must accompany the results, which should remain visible on your website for at least three years.

Although further elaboration and commentary on your results is not legally required, adding a narrative could help both your employees and the public to understand your results. This is particularly worth considering if you have a significant pay gap for valid reasons.

Consider creating an action plan around decreasing your pay gap. Again, this is not legally mandatory, but it is actively encouraged by the Government in pursuit of wider gender workplace equality.

How will Cascade help with Gender Pay Gap Reporting?

To aid our larger customers with maintaining full compliance around gender pay gap regulations, the Cascade HR system has been updated accordingly.

Available within our scheduled April release, the Reporting module now contains two new reports, designed exclusively to calculate the figures needed for gender pay reporting:

The first, available in Payroll Web, will use payroll data to calculate the six figures required to meet gender pay gap reporting requirements.

The second is available within HR, for customers without Payroll Web. This will involve uploading data from your payroll provider. The report will then calculate the six figures required to meet gender pay gap reporting requirements.

For further information on how our software could help your business to confidently manage complex legislative processes,click here.

The module will bring the administratively-complex process of auto-enrolment to life, making it incredibly clear what HR and payroll professionals need to do and when. In turn this will allow each department to retain control over their own tasks at the same time as encouraging legislative compliance.more...

ABOUT CASCADE HR

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